Disclaimer: I don't own the Hobbit.
A/N: A fill I did for the hobbit kink meme. Short and confusing as usual. :D
"Mad Mister Baggins," Bilbo almost sings while puffing out white rings of smoke and dangling his legs over a very steep cliff. Though his expression is bordering on serene, it's as if there is a veil drawn over his eyes, blinding him, trapping him behind the curtains of his mind's theatre where only he can see how the play will end.
"Mad, mad Baggins from under the hill," he mutters and chuckles around his pipe.
This is how Thorin finds him, a spot of red jacket, brass buttons and bare feet against the side of his hard-won mountain. No one has seen the hobbit for days, and they barely have the time to look for him, but that doesn't stop them from worrying and trying whenever they can spare the time.
Thorin worries, because he's seen his grandfather dance amongst his shining treasure, alone and so in love with nothing at all that the fear of him dying for nothing at all was as real as the air he breathed. He's seen his father being taken by orcs who had not the mercy in them to kill him immediately, but kept smirking all the way to the depths of Moria where they dragged him, and with each step they took the will to stay sane waned from his father's eyes.
He has stood in the damaged treasure room himself, mad with greed and void of reason when all he could think of was the Heart of the Mountain, his mind slipping, slipping away through twisted paths from where it might not have found its way back if not for a single voice of reason.
Bilbo Baggins and his golden intentions.
Thorin owes the halfling his kingdom and mind, has lost his heart to him, and now he stands beside him seeing all the signs of insanity that he is familiar with. And though he is King Under the Mountain, he kneels down beside the simple hobbit from the Shire like he's humble, placing his hand on his shoulder with all the care in the world and speaks his name.
Bilbo doesn't jerk in surprise like he had anticipated. The veil is slow to lift from his eyes and it takes a while before the hobbit turns to look at him, a smile on his face like there should be.
"Hello," Bilbo greets him like there is no wrong in the world. Thorin has not the heart to agree it to be true if not for the hobbit's absent mind. Instead he greets the halfling in return and asks after his wellbeing.
Bilbo seems to consider his inquiries, breathing in the smokes from his pipe before his eyes get lost in the scenery the mountain side provides of its surroundings.
"The air is too thin," Bilbo tells him. "Sometimes it feels like I can't breathe."
The air is thin because the hobbit has chosen to have his smoke high up the mountain Thorin wants to tell him, but he knows that descending would probably do little to ease the halfling's discomfort. Gandalf, long since left on his way, had also looked at Bilbo with concern after the many days that followed the Battle.
The old Grey Beard had failed to say much, for he was not certain, but had asked them to worry over their burglar. In the maze of his memory, he remembered how Belladonna Took had once told him that her family were prone to wanderlust, and while Gandalf considered it an admirable trait in folk as mild as the hobbits were, he had never quite known what to make of the distant look that took Belladonna's eyes when she whispered how her child would be half a Took.
Bilbo had never said anything about it, and Gandalf had never found a moment to ask. If he had, he might have known that Belladonna Took had died shortly after Bungo Baggins did. Bilbo might have had trouble holding back his tears while remembering how he had sat beside his mother's bed while she kept on saying, "I've got to find him, Bilbo," the wanderlust in her eyes making her gaze so unfocused that she heard nothing what Bilbo was trying to say to her.
"Forgot his handkerchief, he did," said she over and over again. "I've got to follow him."
So she had left, for when there is no will, there is no way, and hearts stop beating when they break. And Bilbo. Bilbo stayed a bachelor and never left the house without his handkerchief to avoid the need to follow or to be followed.
But then Gandalf had come and whisked him along in his grand adventure and he'd forgotten to take his handkerchief with him. There had been enemies and good will and death and laughter. Acceptance and friendships.
There had been love.
And for four days after the Battle of the Five Armies Bilbo had thought Thorin dead. For four days the wanderlust grew its roots deep inside his mind, making it so that even though he sat at the end of his journey, he itched to move on.
"I need to go," Bilbo says to Thorin in the end, saying nothing of his reasons.
"I need to leave," he repeats with desperation, one that has Thorin wrap his arms around the halfling and hold his steady against his breast when the tears start to fall.
"Then I shall go with you," he whispers his lie against the hobbit's hair, knowing that were Bilbo in his right mind, he would know that a King can't leave his kingdom.
But Bilbo accepts his words, his shaking lessening when Thorin promises, "I will be there with you, every step of the way."
They share broken smiles, and when Thorin takes a piece of a cloth from his pocket and starts to wipe the tears from Bilbo's eyes, his heart beats from the joy of being alive.
They sit a long while against the mountain side, watching the day grow old and die, and into the night Bilbo whispers, "I wish I could find a reason to stay."
And Thorin, too, hopes that he will.
END